Depending on your operating system distribution and the package you used during installation, you could have Dropbox files in two different locations. The instructions in this article are for both cases, so some of the commands may result in an error.

Open your Terminal application.

Copy and paste the following lines one at a time into Terminal. Press Enter after each one.

Don't type commands by hand.

You may be prompted for your computer password (not your Dropbox password) after entering the commands. The password field in Terminal remains blank as you type your password. After you type it, press Enter.

You'll know that these instructions complete normally once the initial line of text (called prompt) appears.

Important: In the commands below, we assume that your Dropbox folder is in the default pathway. If you placed your Dropbox folder in a custom location, replace all instances of ~/Dropbox for the full location of your Dropbox folder in quotation marks. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path /Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox, replace ~/Dropbox from the following command lines to "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox".

Once the Terminal prompt shows up again after a command, the instruction completed the requested task and is ready for the next command. If any of the the commands do not respond after an hour, try restarting your computer and try these steps again.

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Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the installation file and double-click it.

Apply any selective sync settings you had before the reinstall.

Select the Dropbox folder location, if not in the default location.

Important: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to. If you don't you'll create a new Dropbox folder and start to download your content again.

To select your established Dropbox folder on your drive, click Advanced Settings after choosing which folders to sync.

Important: We assume that your Dropbox folder is in the default pathway. If you have placed your Dropbox folder in a custom location, replace all ~/Dropbox with the full location of your Dropbox folder in quotation marks. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path /Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox, you need to replace ~/Dropbox from the following instructions to "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox".

Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the installation file and double-click it.

Apply any selective sync settings you had before the reinstall.

Select the Dropbox folder location, if not in the default location.

Important: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to. If you don't you'll create a new Dropbox folder and start to download your content again.

To select your established Dropbox folder on your drive, click Advanced Settings after choosing which folders to sync.

Then choose the parent folder of your already established Dropbox folder. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path /Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox, select the folder /Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox.

Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the installation file and double-click it. Do not launch the installer by right-clicking on the file and selecting Run as administrator.

Apply any selective sync settings you had before the reinstall.

Select the Dropbox folder location, if not in the default location.

Important: Because this process removes the previous settings and configuration, if you wish to avoid re-downloading your Dropbox content you will need to manually choose the location for Dropbox to sync to. If you don't manually choose a location, you'll create a new Dropbox folder and start to download your content again.

To select your established Dropbox folder on your drive, click Advanced Settings after choosing which folders to sync.

Then choose the parent folder of your already established Dropbox folder. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path D:\OtherDrive\Folder\Dropbox, select the folder D:\OtherDrive\Folder.

After completing the reinstall, it can take time to reindex your files and sync changes.

Changes made to files in your Dropbox folder while it was offline—on dropbox.com or other connected devices—will result in conflicted copies. Learn more about conflicted copies.

Finally, this process only works when linking to the exact same account that was previously linked to this computer. If desired, you can instead learn how to merge accounts.